Google has reached into parent company Alphabet’s $121 billion cash reserves to spend $2.1 billion on Fitbit, a move into the key consumer health market that places them in more direct competition with rival Apple. For more than a year, Ftibit and Google have partnered on healthcare applications; last April, Fitbit announced that it would…
In January 2014, Google announced plans to acquire Nest for $3.2 billion; the acquisition was completed the following day, but since then, Nest’s integration has been a controlled burn. Initially, the company existed as a subsidiary of the newly-formed Alphabet Inc., but in early 2018, Google tightened its grip and integrated it directly into its…
After inking what sources said was a nine-figure deal with the world’s leading supplier of collagen proteins, Gelita, the cell-based collagen maker Geltor is in the market for at least $50 million in new funding, TechCrunch has learned. According to people with knowledge of the company’s plans, the new funding could range from $50 million…
Driverless mobility requires insights into human factors and behavioral psychology Google has been working on autonomous vehicles — one of the biggest challenges in AI — for more than a decade, but it’s learning that the hardest part might just be getting people to enjoy the ride. “This is an experience that you can’t really…
The husband and wife co-founders behind the direct-to-consumer cookware and dinnerware startup retailer OurPlace are big believers in the notion that the doorway to inclusive communities opens through the kitchen. Amir Tehrani, the company’s co-founder and chief executive spent, his life in the cookware and kitchen business, while his wife, Shiza Tehrani, is the co-founder of…
Imagine a hypersonic passenger aircraft that would cut the journey time between London and New York to around two hours. At Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound, the aircraft would complete a trip across the Atlantic in around 120 minutes. Mach 5 is more than twice as fast as the cruising speed of Concorde…
Facebook is in hot water (what else is new) for not planning to remove political ads based on lies. To add to the social network’s predicament, Jack Dorsey yesterday announced that Twitter is getting rid of political ads altogether. Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook‘s COO, retorted that the company didn’t have to go the same way because…
A simple attack on an unpatched server could have been catastrophic for the Utah-based utility.
Jessica spends 12 hours a day on the internet managing security for web assets and loves her macha tea
Chinese autonomous air mobility company EHang has filed with the SEC the paperwork required to go public in the U.S. on the NASDAQ exchange, with a $100 million initial public offering. The company, which has been flying demonstration flights with passengers on board for a while now, is gearing up to launch its first commercial…
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This week Kate and Alex broke the discussion into two main themes. The first dealt with early-stage companies, and the second, as you can imagine, later-stage affairs. Don’t worry, we don’t get to SoftBank for quite some time.…
